India Declares Total Ban on Imports of Plastic Waste
The Indian Environment Ministry announced that plastic waste imports to the country will be banned effective August this year. The move is part of government’s efforts to curb pollution. The announcement to this effect was made by Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar while replying to a query in the upper house of Parliament yesterday.
The Minister emphasized on various measures taken by the Central government in order to protect environment and control air pollution. It has already notified six waste management rules in 2016, covering solid waste, plastic waste, e-waste, bio-medical waste, construction & demolition waste and hazardous wastes.
Though solid waste imports were banned in 2015, agencies in Special Economic Zones (SEZs) were allowed to import them. This loophole was apparently responsible for drastic jump in India’s imports of solid plastic waste in the previous fiscal. As per data, India’s plastic imports had quadrupled from 12,000 tonnes in fiscal 2016-’17 to over 48,000 tonnes in the 2017-’18 fiscal year.
However, the government amended the Hazardous and Other Wastes (Management and Transboundary Movement) Rules, 2016 so as to ban units in SEZs or export oriented units also from importing plastic waste. This has resulted in tremendous reduction in plastic waste import volumes.
The country generates around 20,000 tonnes of plastic waste, out of which only up to 14,000 tonnes are collected, the Minister noted.
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